President Trump tweeted an announcement on Monday that he had fired fired the administration official who refused to allow him to use the Insurrection Act to slow down domestic riots before the 2020 Presidential Election, and that rises questions if Trump will now go back and use that Presidential Authority against any remaining civil uprisings.
The Tweet went out Monday.
Hannity News reported,”President Trump announced on social media Monday that he has “terminated” Defense Secretary Mark Esper; replacing him with Christopher Miller, the current Director of the National Counterterrorism.”
Trump made the announcement on Twitter and said Miller will serve as acting Defense Secretary “effective immediately.”
John Solomon reported, “Despite news reports and speculation that Esper would resign or be fired soon, the move came unexpectedly to Pentagon insiders.
“When I left the building at lunch, Esper was secretary,” one Pentagon employee told Just the News. “By the time I got back, he wasn’t.”
News reports based on unnamed sources over the past few days said that Esper had planned to resign. In recent months, Esper clashed with the president, most notably not supporting Trump’s wish to use the Insurrection Act during the widespread protests and riots that occurred nationwide this summer. The Insurrection Act allows a president to use active-military forces as law enforcement.”
Seb Gorka reported, “This move is long overdue, and a sign that President Trump is still more committed than ever before to his signature mission of draining the swamp; he had previously hinted at firing Dr. Anthony Fauci after his re-election as well, and other similar firings may be coming soon.”
The New York Times reported, “Breaking News: President Trump has fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper. His downfall has been expected since June, when he broke with Trump and said the military shouldn’t be against protesters.”
ABC news reported:
The move comes when he was expected to purge top members of his administration with whom he had long been unhappy.
Trump was particularly displeased that Esper had opposed using active-duty military under the Insurrection Act to deal with the George Floyd protests in June, as the president had threatened to order.
Pentagon officials were scrambling to react to the president’s tweet.
According to a U.S. official, Esper had a resignation letter ready and that Esper was strongly considering resigning ahead of a possible firing.”
The insurrection Act is something that that was long brought up by defenders of the US Constitution as a way of dealing with many violet protests and uprisings before the 2020 Presidential election.
From an NPR article, when they reported on Trump’s desire to use the insurrection act:
President Trump walks from the White House to visit St. John’s Church after the area was cleared of people protesting the death of George Floyd.Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
President Trump threatened Monday to take military action in American cities if the violent demonstrations that have been taking place in recent days aren’t stamped out.
“If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them,” Trump said in a short statement in the Rose Garden at the White House.
To do that, the president would need to invoke what’s known as the Insurrection Act of 1807. The original text of the act, which has been amended several times since it was first passed, reads as follows:
An Act authorizing the employment of the land and naval forces of the United States, in cases of insurrections
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That in all cases of insurrection, or obstruction to the laws, either of the United States, or of any individual state or territory, where it is lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia for the purpose of suppressing such insurrection, or of causing the laws to be duly executed, it shall be lawful for him to employ, for the same purposes, such part of the land or naval force of the United States, as shall be judged necessary, having first observed all the pre-requisites of the law in that respect.
APPROVED, March 3, 1807.
The act was last invoked in 1992 to quell the Los Angeles riots after the acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of Rodney King, a black man, and before that in 1989 during widespread looting in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, after Hurricane Hugo.
POLITICS
Trump Says He’ll Deploy Military To States If They Don’t Stop Violent Protests
Before invoking it, the president “must first issue a proclamation ordering the insurgents to disperse within a limited time, 10 U.S.C. § 334.4. If the situation does not resolve itself, the President may issue an executive order to send in troops,” according to a 2006 report by the Congressional Research Service.
That is the same year the act was amended to expand the instances in which the president may invoke the law, after the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina a year earlier was criticized.
It authorizes “the President to employ the armed forces during a natural disaster or terrorist attack.”
As to whether a state must request the presence of those military forces in the state, that’s “not necessarily” the case, according to experts.
A section of the law (§251) says (emphasis ours):
“[T]he President may, upon the request of its legislature or of its governor if the legislature cannot be convened, call into Federal service such of the militia.”
But the next section (§252) says:
“Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.”
It is unclear what Trump’s further steps will be but I will be watching and reporting.
This story is developing..
Kari is an ex-Community Organizer who writes about Voter Engagement, Cultural Marxism and Campaigns. She has been a grassroots volunteer with the GOP, on and off for 18 years. She is a Homeschool Mom in North Carolina and loves Photojournalism and Citizen Journalism. @Saorsa1776
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